A kiss from a ghost, the pale moon burns
and the sea goes out. The dead will find you,
their mouths full of birds, their eyes full of salt.
Look at the world and see how it’s not yours,
the white hands like smoke on the shore where they rest.
The sun is a bird caught in a branch and the world
is its dying song. You are this branch and I am the bird
and I can’t stop singing. Your branches spread into me;
the birds gather in my throat as if they could be words.
